Research on a Space Elevator is being performed at the time of this Patent application. Public disclosures of promising technologies have been presented in recent periodicals. This reference material can be found in the following periodicals:                DISCOVER, Vol. 25 No. 07 | July 2004 | Astronomy & Physics        Popular Science, April 2004        The Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 2, 2003        
The leading research institute performing research into the Space Elevator is the Institute for Scientific Research, Inc. (ISR), Farimont, W. Va. A brief description of a Space Elevator as provided by ISR follows:
“The Space Elevator is a revolutionary way of getting from Earth into space—a ribbon with one end, attached to Earth on a floating platform located in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the other end in space beyond geosynchronous orbit. The Space Elevator will ferry satellites, spaceships, and pieces of space stations into space using electric lifts clamped to the ribbon, serving as a means for commerce, scientific advancement, and space exploration.”
The Space Elevator, as envisioned by ISR, uses an elevator capable of climbing a tether (ribbon cable) of an anchor weight where the Earth attachment point is near the equator and the anchor weight is located at the other end of the tether at an altitude of approximately 1 00,000 kilometers. At such altitude the centripetal force on the tether and anchor weight exceeds that of the gravitational force on the tether and anchor weight thus causing the tethered anchor weight to remain in a fixed synchronous orbit. Recent advances in material technology, in particular carbon nano tube (CNT) development, makes it possible to construct a tether of such magnitude and strength. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,682,677 Jan. 27, 2004 Lobovsky, et al., “Spinning, processing, and applications of carbon nanotube filaments, ribbons, and yarns”, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,764,628 Jul. 20, 2004 Lobovsky, et al., “Composite material comprising oriented carbon nanotubes in a carbon matrix and process for preparing same”, which are hereby incorporated by reference.
The elevator, as envisioned by ISR, contains a locomotion device consisting of a traction device known as a gripper, and an electric motor and drive system. The electricity for the motor is beamed to the elevator from a power broadcasting station located at or near the Earth based attachment point. The elevator is designed to climb up and climb down the tether.
The ISR proposed system has the attractive feature of requiring only the single tether for support but has a disadvantage in that the elevator must contain the locomotion device as well as power conversion device that receives and converts the beamed power from the Earth station. Additionally the ISR configuration lacks a counterbalance system thus requiring the locomotion device to lift the dead weight of the elevator, locomotion device and payload. The ISR design requires a substantial Earth-based power generation system and power broadcast system.